Horton, Jay

ORAL HISTORY OF JAY HORTON
Interviewed and filmed by Keith McDaniel
June 14, 2011
Mr. McDaniel: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is June 14th, 2011, and I’m here with Mr. Jay Horton, here at his home in Oak Ridge. Thank you, sir, for being with us.
Mr. Horton: I’m glad to be here.
Mr. McDaniel: We’re going to talk about your life in Oak Ridge, but I want a little bit of background information. Tell me where you were born and raised, and where you went to school, and all that kind of stuff.
Mr. Horton: Well, I was born in Waco, Texas. We were not a member of the Davidians, however. [laughter] But, anyway, we didn’t live there long. We moved quite a bit. My dad was on the road a good deal. We were back and forth between Texas and Oklahoma. I went to high school the first two years in Texas, and my second two years in Oklahoma. And then I went to college in Oklahoma, Oklahoma State.
Mr. McDaniel: What year did you graduate high school?
Mr. Horton: 1930.
Mr. McDaniel: 1930, okay. So, how old would that make you now?
Mr. Horton: Well, I’ll be ninety-seven next month.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? Well, congratulations. So, you were between Texas and Oklahoma most of your young life.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And then you went to Oklahoma State University. What did you study there?
Mr. Horton: Well, I was a Chemistry major.
Mr. McDaniel: Why did you choose that?
Mr. Horton: I always liked science and math, even when I was younger, and even before high school I liked those subjects.
Mr. McDaniel: I guess there was probably a good up-and-coming job market for chemists at that time, wasn’t there?
Mr. Horton: Well, when I got out of college, there wasn’t a market for anybody.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, I guess so.
Mr. Horton: I mean, in the Depression.
Mr. McDaniel: That was the Depression, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: That’s when they had these men selling apples around in New York; they were on the street.
Mr. McDaniel: Let’s talk about that. What was it like growing up in the Depression? What did your father do?
Mr. Horton: Well, he was a piano tuner, a repairman and salesman. He worked for a piano company that went broke. In fact, his specialty was the player piano. He was an expert at repairing player pianos, which back then were quite popular. But that’s kind of like the buggy whip; that went out. So, during the Depression, my dad was having a hard time because people wouldn’t have their pianos tuned. A lot of them got out of tune. They couldn’t afford to have it done.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, and I’m sure a lot of people sold their pianos, too, or tried to sell them.
Mr. Horton: My mother was a schoolteacher so she helped us get by during those times.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you have brothers and sisters?
Mr. Horton: No, I was a single child.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, you’re an only child? Okay. So, you got through the Depression, and then you went to college at the university. I guess that was kind of a tough thing to do, too, or did you go on scholarship?
Mr. Horton: Well, I had a part-time job at school, yes, and when I was doing my graduate work, I was in charge of a men’s dormitory there and worked for the Dean of Men.
Mr. McDaniel: So, what did you do after you graduated – so you got your Bachelor’s there. Did you get your –
Mr. Horton: I got a Master’s there.
Mr. McDaniel: You got your Master’s there, too?
Mr. Horton: And I was all set to go on and get a Ph.D. at that time. In fact, I had two definite places to go. One was NYU and one was at the University of Michigan, but the war was coming on then, you see? I realized that I’d be in Class 1-A and it’d be foolish, so I gave up on that. So I went to work in a high explosives powder plant for DuPont.
Mr. McDaniel: Was that in Texas?
Mr. Horton: No, that plant was in – well, it was near Chicago, actually. It was about ten miles from Joliet, and I stayed in that powder plant for about a year, and then I was transferred to a similar – just opening up – another powder plant in Alabama. That was about sixty miles from Birmingham, south there near Childersburg, Alabama, and I was there about a year. So then, one Friday afternoon, I was called in and told to report to Knoxville, Tennessee, on Monday morning. I wasn’t sure. I had to get the map out to find out where Knoxville was, but being single and draft-exempt, I certainly wasn’t going to worry about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, why were you draft-exempt?
Mr. Horton: My draft board didn’t have too many applicants for people like me. Now, if I lived in Chicago, they probably had hundreds, probably thousands of people asking for technical deferments, and so on. But, anyway, the draft board right away put me in an exempt category.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So they called you in on a Friday and said for you to report to Knoxville, and you got your map out. How did you get to Knoxville from down in Alabama?
Mr. Horton: Well, it turns out I had a good friend there who was doing the same work I was – we were supervising this powder plant – and he had just married this girl he met there in Birmingham, and she was pregnant and expecting most any day, and he had a small plane that he wanted to bring here, of course, so he wanted me to bring his wife up and he’d fly the plane up, and we’d ship my car by rail, which I drove his car up with his wife and shipped my car in by rail. So, I was watching her every minute on the way up there, hoping that it wasn’t time yet. [laughter] But, luckily, it was a day or two after she got here.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a good day’s drive back then, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, just from Birmingham to here was one day, a short day’s drive.
Mr. McDaniel: So when you got to Knoxville, tell me what happened.
Mr. Horton: Well, we were brought to Oak Ridge, of course, and you had to be classified. They have to contact the police department and your background and see that you’re not a spy or something and it took a few days for that to happen. And in the meantime, I just had to go out to the plant and sit there and read and wait for the clearance to come in before they could tell me what we were doing or anything. But after a few days, I could go to work then.
Mr. McDaniel: Where were you staying early on, those first few days? Did you stay at the guesthouse? Where did you stay overnight?
Mr. Horton: At the dormitories. They had seventy-odd dormitories, I believe, in the early days here, and the cemesto houses had foundations and chimneys, and that was it. No houses yet. So, the married men were putting their families in Clinton or Norris, or wherever they could find a spot.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. When did you come to Oak Ridge?
Mr. Horton: In June of ’43.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, June of ’43. Right, and they were just starting. I mean they were just getting things going, weren’t they?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, the plants were just getting ready to get on stream. So, I was two years at X-10, and X-10 was primarily a development plant, power plant for Hanford. So, after a couple years – well, yeah, after about two years, Monsanto took over from DuPont, and it looked like I couldn’t see too much future for X-10 at that point. It wasn’t a research lab then. It was primarily a power plant. So, I came over to K-25 then, and it was just starting up.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Was it after the war was over? When Monsanto took over, was it right after?
Mr. Horton: No, it was before.
Mr. McDaniel: It was before the bombs were dropped.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. Everything was very secret. Even when I went over to K-25, I wasn’t allowed to discuss what was going on at X-10 and the plutonium process.
Mr. McDaniel: What were you doing at X-10? What kind of work were you doing?
Mr. Horton: Well, our group, at first we were in the separation of plutonium when they took the slugs and dissolved them up and then precipitated out the plutonium. We worked on that process.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, and that was a chemical process, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah. And then, of course, later on, all of this was done in a large process by remote controls. So later on, we were actually operating the cells, these concrete cells, which housed the equipment for the separation of the plutonium. So they were producing gram quantities of plutonium at that point with the power plant.
Mr. McDaniel: But they were proving that it could be done so they could do it at Hanford, right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, use the process for Hanford.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, exactly. And for those people who may be watching this that don’t understand or don’t know the process at X-10, at the Graphite Reactor, why don’t you give me just a brief description of how you would get plutonium?
Mr. Horton: Well, the slugs were taken – actually, nobody touches those. It’s all done by remote control because those are pretty highly radioactive, and those slugs were put into a big vat of –
Mr. McDaniel: But first, the slugs were put into the Graphite Reactor and irradiated.
Mr. Horton: Yes, the Reactor.
Mr. McDaniel: Go back and tell me that process real quick.
Mr. Horton: Actually, I didn’t have any dealings with the – there was another group that were handling the pile for the slugs there.
Mr. McDaniel: But once they were put in and irradiated and then they were taken out, then your work started, right?
Mr. Horton: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Because you used a chemical process to extract the plutonium.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Which was a result – correct me if I’m wrong, but the plutonium was a result of the slugs being irradiated in the pile, right?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s how you got plutonium.
Mr. Horton: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So you took that, and what did you do, if you can tell me? I don’t know if you can tell me or not. It may be classified, but what did you do? What kind of process was it?
Mr. Horton: Well, it was a cold precipitation process, and actually I couldn’t give you details on it because we’re talking about sixty-odd years ago.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. No, I understand.
Mr. Horton: I have trouble remembering names of the people I worked with. [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] I understand. So you did that, and then you moved to K-25, while they were just getting started at K-25, and what did you do at K-25?
Mr. Horton: Well, at that point, the plant was just getting ready to be put on stream, so we were actually starting the program up little by little, going down the line and getting it on stream. Finally, when it was all on stream pretty well, it was pretty obvious that we had far too many technical people there, because they wanted all they could get to get it started. So, I realized that if I stayed there, I was going to be on shiftwork as a shift supervisor. Well, I hated shift work. I had done enough of that already. So, I went over to the lab and talked to the director, and he found a spot for me over there, so I transferred over to the lab.
Mr. McDaniel: How long were you at K-25?
Mr. Horton: I was there until I retired, which was about thirty-odd years.
Mr. McDaniel: At K-25?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I thought you went back to the Lab [X-10].
Mr. Horton: Oh, no. No, I was in the lab at K-25.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, the lab at K-25.
Mr. Horton: People use “the lab” in a different context.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, so you went out of the process plant to the lab at K-25?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I see, and you stayed there for how long?
Mr. Horton: About thirty years.
Mr. McDaniel: About thirty years, until you retired? What year did you retire?
Mr. Horton: Let’s see. It’s been so many years, it’s hard to remember.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure. Was it about ’86?
Mr. Horton: Oh no, it was before that.
Mr. McDaniel: It was before then?
Mr. Horton: Let’s see. I think I’ve been retired thirty-odd years. Maybe about ’67, I think, somewhere in there.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, something like that.
Mr. Horton: I was age sixty-two when I retired.
Mr. McDaniel: What kind of work did you do at the lab? Was it research mostly or development?
Mr. Horton: No, I worked in mass spectrometry, primarily, and I did spend a year or so with a special analytical group in chemistry, and then I went back to the mass spectrometer group and stayed there.
Mr. McDaniel: What did the mass spectrometer group do?
Mr. Horton: Well, they analyzed the uranium isotopes. We did plant control samples and samples from the development of the barrier process.
Mr. McDaniel: So really, you were making sure that it was being as efficient as it could be, the process was being as efficient as it could be, the gaseous diffusion process. Right.
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we had analysts around the clock supplying plant samples, as well as the barrier testing process was going on continually, and tiny improvements in barrier made a huge difference, and we were measuring those very tiny differences with the mass spectrometer.
Mr. McDaniel: So, one of the things you were doing is as they were testing the new barrier to make it more efficient, you were showing whether it was more efficient or not. If it was, then they could install the new barrier.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Because I know that at the lab they did a lot of barrier improvement constantly, constantly improving the barrier because it was such a huge operation. Like you said, little improvement in the barrier made a huge difference.
Mr. Horton: Oh, yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, who were some of the folks you worked with out there? Do you remember?
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah, sure. The Mass Spectrometer Department, headed by Lester Smith, was a pretty good size outfit. I was in charge of the operation of the mass spectrometers. We had a whole room full of mass spectrometers, and we’d have several analysts working in there during the day, and at night we’d have usually two analysts on the off-shifts so that there was always somebody available to supply the analysis.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. How big were those mass spectrometers?
Mr. Horton: Well, they would stand about five or six feet tall, and they had a desk with a seat out in front of it, if you had time to sit down. You didn’t use it too much. Actually, the mass spectrometer, the housing had the electronics in it to supply the necessary power, and so on. We eventually tied all those to a computer, so instead of having a full-time calculator – it used to be there’d be one gal with a little hand calculator. We didn’t have computers back then. All day long, all she did was sit and calculate results. And that was all done by the computer after we hooked all those up there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Your mass spectrometer was kind of an automated system early on, anyway, wasn’t it? You put the sample in and then it gave you results? Is that how that worked?
Mr. Horton: Well, it really wasn’t. It wasn’t all that automated. You had to actually record the data and pass it on to the analyst.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so you stayed out there, and did you ever work with Bill Wilcox?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, he was the supervisor of our whole technical division.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. What was he like?
Mr. Horton: Oh, he was fine. Fine. I didn’t have a lot of contact with him, but what little I did, I certainly had a lot of respect for him.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. So, you retired in you said about ’67 or so, right around there. Did you just have enough points, or you just decided it was time to retire, or were things changing so much out there you couldn’t tolerate it anymore? A lot of people have told me that.
Mr. Horton: One reason I retired early, my wife was in poor health and I wanted to be able to help her more, so I had had enough points to get a reasonable retirement pension, and I was eligible for Social Security at age sixty-two at that point, so it worked out all right.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, let’s go back, and we’ve kind of covered your work career a little bit. Let’s go back and talk about your family. Now, where did you meet your wife, and when did you get married?
Mr. Horton: Well, I met my wife in Oak Ridge. She was recruited by Dr. Blankenship, who started the Oak Ridge School System. He went out all over the country looking for excellent teachers, and she was recommended by the University of Michigan, where she graduated, and she was brought in as one of the high school teachers. She taught business subjects.
Mr. McDaniel: How did you meet her?
Mr. Horton: Well, they had recreation halls here, and I met her at one of the recreation halls, dancing and so on. They had I guess five or six commercial teachers. She was sort of the group leader in many ways, although officially she didn’t get any extra pay for it, but of all the girls that were going to work in the offices here would have her recommend them for office work in different places here.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. So she taught at the high school.
Mr. Horton: Yes. She stayed there until our son came along, and so after that, she didn’t go back to work. They had a rule that you could go back after one year, but she decided to stay home and raise the young’un.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. How many kids did you –
Mr. Horton: Just the one.
Mr. McDaniel: – just the one? Okay. All right. So, where did you live, or how long did you date and where did live once you got married?
Mr. Horton: Well, I met her in I’d say about 1944, I guess, and we dated quite a bit here, and when she went back to her home in Michigan for the summer, she was offered a better job than she had here. Actually, she was offered a job in a junior college up in Michigan, but I think she figured we were about to get married, although we really hadn’t talked about it. But, anyway, she came on back to Oak Ridge, and so we did get married shortly after that.
Mr. McDaniel: And she said, “I gave up a good job for you, so you better marry me,” right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, I don’t know whether she regretted it or not.
Mr. McDaniel: So, you got married and you had your son. So, once you got married, where did you live?
Mr. Horton: Well, we got an “A” house. We were lucky to get one near the old high school, over there near the football field.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, Blankenship [Field]. What street was the “A” house on?
Mr. Horton: That was on Kentucky.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, Kentucky? Right.
Mr. Horton: So she was just a block from where she worked there.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s handy.
Mr. Horton: But, it turns out we made a mistake. We could have had a larger house if we’d asked for it, because her parents had to come and live with us; we really needed more room.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I’m sure. So when did they end up coming to live with you, her parents?
Mr. Horton: Yes, they came down, and they weren’t in very good health, and we did manage to get a “B” house, which was a little improvement and we enlarged it and lived there until we moved to this place. We bought this place from the owner. This was a government-built house, and he had added on to it, as you’ve probably noticed. But he and his wife had separated, and we bought it from her, actually.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. What year was that? About what year was that?
Mr. Horton: About 1980.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, so you stayed in the “B” house for a while, didn’t you?
Mr. Horton: Oh yes. Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, for quite some time. So back especially while the war was going on, people tell me that Oak Ridge was just, I mean, had all kinds of things going on. So what was it like to be a single man in Oak Ridge in 1943, ’44, and ’45?
Mr. Horton: Well, Oak Ridge was full of young people, you know? The dormitories were full of young men and young women, most of them in their twenties and thirties, and I played in a dance band, by the way.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Horton: We played every Saturday night at the Jefferson Recreational Hall for a couple years, and usually we’d have some other date on maybe Friday night. We’d usually have about two jobs a week, on average.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? What did you play?
Mr. Horton: Well, I played trumpet to begin with, and then I switched over to a bass fiddle. So, I played bass most of the time.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Upright bass, I imagine.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. They had another dance band called The Rhythm Engineers, and they played every Saturday night at the Grove Center.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I think I’ve seen a picture of The Rhythm Engineers. Do you have a photo of your dance band?
Mr. Horton: Well, I have one. This is not –
Mr. McDaniel: You can show it to me after we get through.
Mr. Horton: – okay. Yeah, we had actually two or three different groups I played in. We just had a piano, bass, drums and guitar and vocalist. We played jobs with that for a while. But, once in a while, I did fill in with The Rhythm Engineers when their bass player was sick or out of town or something, but I never played with them other than just a few times as a substitute.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question. When you all played, I imagine you got hired to play.
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it the Recreation Department that hired you?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Do you remember how much you got paid?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we got ten dollars for a dance job, and then the leader got double.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay, so each of you got ten dollars?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we each got ten dollars.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay. That wasn’t too bad. That wasn’t too shabby back then, was it?
Mr. Horton: It was not bad, for those days because, remember, when I came here in ’43, I think they were hiring Ph.D.s for three hundred dollars a month.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah. Sure. Well, my goodness. What other activities were you involved in?
Mr. Horton: Well, I did play a little tennis when they built these tennis courts there, and we didn’t have a golf course until 1947, and I was in the group that – well, in 1946, they tried to get one started but it didn’t go through. They wanted to get a hundred and twenty people to put up five hundred dollars, I guess, so for sixty thousand they would build a complete golf course for us. That sounds unreal these days, but –
Mr. McDaniel: I know. That’s amazing.
Mr. Horton: – anyway, we only raised about half that amount, so it didn’t work.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But they did in ’47, right?
Mr. Horton: In ’47, we got together, and you had to work so many hours, each person contributed a few dollars and worked so many hours.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, and that was the country club, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: That was the Oak Ridge Country Club.
Mr. Horton: It so happens I’m the only surviving member of the Charter Members there.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? So what did that investment buy you over the years, free membership?
Mr. Horton: Well, they started out with a different arrangement. The charter members were getting quite a good break on a membership. But, unfortunately, when the non-charters got in the majority, you can imagine they voted that out.
Mr. McDaniel: I’m sure they did. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: So that didn’t last too long.
Mr. McDaniel: So did you play golf out there a lot?
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah. Yeah, that was my – I never was very good at it. I mean I had a 12 handicap finally, the best I ever had, but I was sort of a mediocre golfer.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, like ninety-nine percent of the people who play. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah. [laughter] We had a city band. I was one of the first members. In 1944, they organized a little band that played concerts. We had a director. His name was White, I believe, and he was from either Tulsa or Oklahoma City – one of the Oklahoma towns. Anyway, he didn’t stay around here very long, but I still play in the [Oak Ridge] Community Band. I’ve been with it ever since it started.
Mr. McDaniel: I bet you’re the oldest member of the Community Band, aren’t you? [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah. [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: What do you play?
Mr. Horton: I play a baritone horn, a euphonium in the band. I get a little worse every year, but I still enjoy it.
Mr. McDaniel: So, you played with them from, what year was that?
Mr. Horton: 1944.
Mr. McDaniel: ’44.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s amazing. But I guess the musical family kind of came through with you, didn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, my dad was – he played the piano by ear. He couldn’t read music.
Mr. McDaniel: What else do you want to talk about? What else do you want to tell me about? Got any stories? Here’s a great chance for you to say what you’ve always wanted to say but didn’t.
Mr. Horton: Well, I certainly like Oak Ridge. Of course, I’ve lived here the majority of my life, but I think it has a lot to offer in the way of climate and in the way of people who live here. I think it’s a very good place to retire to, actually.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Speaking of that, what are some of the changes you’ve seen in Oak Ridge, for the good or the worse?
Mr. Horton: Of course when I got here, they didn’t have any paved roads. They were all gravel or mud. They put salt down to settle the dust, and then, when it rained, that salt would rot out your underside of the car. A lot of people had that problem. They didn’t have an undercoat, as you need to have a heavy undercoat to protect it, because often you’d see a fender or a floor of the trunk begin to drop out.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh sure, kind of like they do up north, kind of like those northern cars with all the salt on the roads.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And your son, you said you had a son, right?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: So he grew up here in Oak Ridge, and he went to the schools and all. I mean, was it a good place to raise a family?
Mr. Horton: I think so, yes. My son really didn’t – he was an excellent football player in the Little Leagues. He got a trophy as the outstanding player. The reason for it was he was just at the ideal weight and age point to be one of the larger, stronger ones in the group, but that worked against him when he got into high school because he wasn’t all that large then. At that time, Oak Ridge was high school champions of the state. They were undefeated, and they had a lot of good players. He knew all of them and had scrimmages – he realized that he might play a defensive back or something, but he never did go out because he just didn’t mature quick enough. But then he kept growing, and now he’s almost your size. I think he weighs about two-forty.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how old is he?
Mr. Horton: Oh, he’s up crowding fifty, I guess.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay. So, you didn’t have him until later on in life, did you?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, let’s see, I was about forty-five when he was born.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, exactly. How old were you when you got married?
Mr. Horton: Well, around thirty or so.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s what I was thinking, you were about – right. Right.
Mr. Horton: My wife was younger, four or five years younger, but when she had her first child, she was up past forty a little bit. The doctor told her when she was well along, said, “We’d prefer you to start earlier.” And, “Now you tell me,” she said.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s true. Now, you lost your wife, I take it.
Mr. Horton: Yes. She was a heavy smoker.
Mr. McDaniel: When did she pass away?
Mr. Horton: She died in ’89.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Where does your son live now?
Mr. Horton: He’s near Maryville. He’s a civil engineer.
Mr. McDaniel: So he’s close.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: You get to see him.
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah, I see him almost every weekend. He has three children, one son and two daughters.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Well, good. Well is there anything else you want to tell me about, any other stories, anything you want to comment? You know, if you had to say, “Okay, I hope people remember me because,” what would that be?
Mr. Horton: Well, I don’t think of any outstanding event that would – in playing these dance jobs, we saw a lot of things. Well, for instance, beer was hard to come by then, and of course it was bottled. They didn’t have canned beer then. They, some Saturday nights – and by ‘they,’ I’m talking about the powers that be in Oak Ridge – would have beer at the Dance Hall, so we’d have probably half of them came just for the beer.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh sure. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: We might have five hundred customers: two hundred of them dancing and three hundred drinking beer. Well, you could imagine, with a bunch of young bucks, along about midnight the beer bottles would start flying.
Mr. McDaniel: Hold on just a second. We dropped your microphone. Just a minute.
Mr. Horton: Oh.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s okay. Jasmine will do it. We’re almost through. Yeah, so you had a lot of drunk, young men at those dances?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Did the cops ever have to come?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, they had a bunch of officers, but they tend to be older middle-age guys that really weren’t going to go in there and break up – they’d do the best they could, but they –
Mr. McDaniel: And I guess they probably thought, “These guys work hard all the time. They deserve to blow off a little steam every once in a while.”
Mr. Horton: Yeah. By in large, the dances were a little more sedate than that. Those were exceptional times, but it did happen once in a while.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now when they opened the gates to the city, did you go to those events, you know, the day that they opened the gates in ’49?
Mr. Horton: Yes, I remember those quite well. They had quite a performance there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Now, did you want them to open the gates? You know, a lot of people didn’t back then. They didn’t want them to open the gates. They wanted to leave it. What were your feelings?
Mr. Horton: Well, I didn’t have any strong feelings on it, but it suited me all right if they didn’t. I mean it was ’49. You didn’t have to lock your house, and it was pretty nice in many ways. So, I guess if I’d voted on it, I would have voted to leave it like it was. Of course, you know that can’t continue forever. But somebody got the idea later on that they’d hire a bunch of young sort of criminals, in a way. They were street guys they’d brought in from Chicago, and they were going to rehabilitate them here in Oak Ridge, give them jobs. Well, it didn’t work out too well because all of a sudden, people were getting robbed and mugged here during that period.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What timeframe?
Mr. Horton: I can’t remember the date.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it before the gates were opened, or after the gates were opened?
Mr. Horton: I think that was after.
Mr. McDaniel: It was probably in the ’50s, maybe?
Mr. Horton: Probably. I can’t be sure of that.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? I’ve never heard that story before.
Mr. Horton: You haven’t?
Mr. McDaniel: Nuhn-uhn. So, it didn’t work out too well, huhn?
Mr. Horton: No. All of sudden, you began to lock your house and be a little careful when you went out at night, particularly somebody walking around Jackson Square would get robbed down there.
Mr. McDaniel: My goodness.
Mr. Horton: But they eventually got rid of those – of course, not all of them. I mean a few of them settled down and did good work and all, but the criminals, they finally got rid of them, I think, pretty well.
Mr. McDaniel: Who was it brought them in, do you know? Who brought them in?
Mr. Horton: No, I don’t remember.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Was it the government?
Mr. Horton: Well, yeah, I think it had to be somebody related to either Roane-Anderson, who was running [the city] then.
Mr. McDaniel: So, for a while, Oak Ridge kind of had its own little mob, didn’t they? [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, is there anything else you want to say? We’ve talked for a while. Is there anything else you want to add?
Mr. Horton: Well, I don’t think of anything at the moment.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. All right. We thank you for taking the time to talk with us –
Mr. Horton: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: – and it was nice speaking to you, and maybe people that watch this will have an opportunity to learn something they didn’t know before.
Mr. Horton: Possibly.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Thank you.
[end of recording]

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ORAL HISTORY OF JAY HORTON
Interviewed and filmed by Keith McDaniel
June 14, 2011
Mr. McDaniel: This is Keith McDaniel, and today is June 14th, 2011, and I’m here with Mr. Jay Horton, here at his home in Oak Ridge. Thank you, sir, for being with us.
Mr. Horton: I’m glad to be here.
Mr. McDaniel: We’re going to talk about your life in Oak Ridge, but I want a little bit of background information. Tell me where you were born and raised, and where you went to school, and all that kind of stuff.
Mr. Horton: Well, I was born in Waco, Texas. We were not a member of the Davidians, however. [laughter] But, anyway, we didn’t live there long. We moved quite a bit. My dad was on the road a good deal. We were back and forth between Texas and Oklahoma. I went to high school the first two years in Texas, and my second two years in Oklahoma. And then I went to college in Oklahoma, Oklahoma State.
Mr. McDaniel: What year did you graduate high school?
Mr. Horton: 1930.
Mr. McDaniel: 1930, okay. So, how old would that make you now?
Mr. Horton: Well, I’ll be ninety-seven next month.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? Well, congratulations. So, you were between Texas and Oklahoma most of your young life.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: And then you went to Oklahoma State University. What did you study there?
Mr. Horton: Well, I was a Chemistry major.
Mr. McDaniel: Why did you choose that?
Mr. Horton: I always liked science and math, even when I was younger, and even before high school I liked those subjects.
Mr. McDaniel: I guess there was probably a good up-and-coming job market for chemists at that time, wasn’t there?
Mr. Horton: Well, when I got out of college, there wasn’t a market for anybody.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, I guess so.
Mr. Horton: I mean, in the Depression.
Mr. McDaniel: That was the Depression, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: That’s when they had these men selling apples around in New York; they were on the street.
Mr. McDaniel: Let’s talk about that. What was it like growing up in the Depression? What did your father do?
Mr. Horton: Well, he was a piano tuner, a repairman and salesman. He worked for a piano company that went broke. In fact, his specialty was the player piano. He was an expert at repairing player pianos, which back then were quite popular. But that’s kind of like the buggy whip; that went out. So, during the Depression, my dad was having a hard time because people wouldn’t have their pianos tuned. A lot of them got out of tune. They couldn’t afford to have it done.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, and I’m sure a lot of people sold their pianos, too, or tried to sell them.
Mr. Horton: My mother was a schoolteacher so she helped us get by during those times.
Mr. McDaniel: Did you have brothers and sisters?
Mr. Horton: No, I was a single child.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, you’re an only child? Okay. So, you got through the Depression, and then you went to college at the university. I guess that was kind of a tough thing to do, too, or did you go on scholarship?
Mr. Horton: Well, I had a part-time job at school, yes, and when I was doing my graduate work, I was in charge of a men’s dormitory there and worked for the Dean of Men.
Mr. McDaniel: So, what did you do after you graduated – so you got your Bachelor’s there. Did you get your –
Mr. Horton: I got a Master’s there.
Mr. McDaniel: You got your Master’s there, too?
Mr. Horton: And I was all set to go on and get a Ph.D. at that time. In fact, I had two definite places to go. One was NYU and one was at the University of Michigan, but the war was coming on then, you see? I realized that I’d be in Class 1-A and it’d be foolish, so I gave up on that. So I went to work in a high explosives powder plant for DuPont.
Mr. McDaniel: Was that in Texas?
Mr. Horton: No, that plant was in – well, it was near Chicago, actually. It was about ten miles from Joliet, and I stayed in that powder plant for about a year, and then I was transferred to a similar – just opening up – another powder plant in Alabama. That was about sixty miles from Birmingham, south there near Childersburg, Alabama, and I was there about a year. So then, one Friday afternoon, I was called in and told to report to Knoxville, Tennessee, on Monday morning. I wasn’t sure. I had to get the map out to find out where Knoxville was, but being single and draft-exempt, I certainly wasn’t going to worry about it.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now, why were you draft-exempt?
Mr. Horton: My draft board didn’t have too many applicants for people like me. Now, if I lived in Chicago, they probably had hundreds, probably thousands of people asking for technical deferments, and so on. But, anyway, the draft board right away put me in an exempt category.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So they called you in on a Friday and said for you to report to Knoxville, and you got your map out. How did you get to Knoxville from down in Alabama?
Mr. Horton: Well, it turns out I had a good friend there who was doing the same work I was – we were supervising this powder plant – and he had just married this girl he met there in Birmingham, and she was pregnant and expecting most any day, and he had a small plane that he wanted to bring here, of course, so he wanted me to bring his wife up and he’d fly the plane up, and we’d ship my car by rail, which I drove his car up with his wife and shipped my car in by rail. So, I was watching her every minute on the way up there, hoping that it wasn’t time yet. [laughter] But, luckily, it was a day or two after she got here.
Mr. McDaniel: That was a good day’s drive back then, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, just from Birmingham to here was one day, a short day’s drive.
Mr. McDaniel: So when you got to Knoxville, tell me what happened.
Mr. Horton: Well, we were brought to Oak Ridge, of course, and you had to be classified. They have to contact the police department and your background and see that you’re not a spy or something and it took a few days for that to happen. And in the meantime, I just had to go out to the plant and sit there and read and wait for the clearance to come in before they could tell me what we were doing or anything. But after a few days, I could go to work then.
Mr. McDaniel: Where were you staying early on, those first few days? Did you stay at the guesthouse? Where did you stay overnight?
Mr. Horton: At the dormitories. They had seventy-odd dormitories, I believe, in the early days here, and the cemesto houses had foundations and chimneys, and that was it. No houses yet. So, the married men were putting their families in Clinton or Norris, or wherever they could find a spot.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. When did you come to Oak Ridge?
Mr. Horton: In June of ’43.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, June of ’43. Right, and they were just starting. I mean they were just getting things going, weren’t they?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, the plants were just getting ready to get on stream. So, I was two years at X-10, and X-10 was primarily a development plant, power plant for Hanford. So, after a couple years – well, yeah, after about two years, Monsanto took over from DuPont, and it looked like I couldn’t see too much future for X-10 at that point. It wasn’t a research lab then. It was primarily a power plant. So, I came over to K-25 then, and it was just starting up.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Was it after the war was over? When Monsanto took over, was it right after?
Mr. Horton: No, it was before.
Mr. McDaniel: It was before the bombs were dropped.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. Everything was very secret. Even when I went over to K-25, I wasn’t allowed to discuss what was going on at X-10 and the plutonium process.
Mr. McDaniel: What were you doing at X-10? What kind of work were you doing?
Mr. Horton: Well, our group, at first we were in the separation of plutonium when they took the slugs and dissolved them up and then precipitated out the plutonium. We worked on that process.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, and that was a chemical process, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah. And then, of course, later on, all of this was done in a large process by remote controls. So later on, we were actually operating the cells, these concrete cells, which housed the equipment for the separation of the plutonium. So they were producing gram quantities of plutonium at that point with the power plant.
Mr. McDaniel: But they were proving that it could be done so they could do it at Hanford, right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, use the process for Hanford.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, exactly. And for those people who may be watching this that don’t understand or don’t know the process at X-10, at the Graphite Reactor, why don’t you give me just a brief description of how you would get plutonium?
Mr. Horton: Well, the slugs were taken – actually, nobody touches those. It’s all done by remote control because those are pretty highly radioactive, and those slugs were put into a big vat of –
Mr. McDaniel: But first, the slugs were put into the Graphite Reactor and irradiated.
Mr. Horton: Yes, the Reactor.
Mr. McDaniel: Go back and tell me that process real quick.
Mr. Horton: Actually, I didn’t have any dealings with the – there was another group that were handling the pile for the slugs there.
Mr. McDaniel: But once they were put in and irradiated and then they were taken out, then your work started, right?
Mr. Horton: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Because you used a chemical process to extract the plutonium.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Which was a result – correct me if I’m wrong, but the plutonium was a result of the slugs being irradiated in the pile, right?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s how you got plutonium.
Mr. Horton: Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. So you took that, and what did you do, if you can tell me? I don’t know if you can tell me or not. It may be classified, but what did you do? What kind of process was it?
Mr. Horton: Well, it was a cold precipitation process, and actually I couldn’t give you details on it because we’re talking about sixty-odd years ago.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. No, I understand.
Mr. Horton: I have trouble remembering names of the people I worked with. [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: [laughter] I understand. So you did that, and then you moved to K-25, while they were just getting started at K-25, and what did you do at K-25?
Mr. Horton: Well, at that point, the plant was just getting ready to be put on stream, so we were actually starting the program up little by little, going down the line and getting it on stream. Finally, when it was all on stream pretty well, it was pretty obvious that we had far too many technical people there, because they wanted all they could get to get it started. So, I realized that if I stayed there, I was going to be on shiftwork as a shift supervisor. Well, I hated shift work. I had done enough of that already. So, I went over to the lab and talked to the director, and he found a spot for me over there, so I transferred over to the lab.
Mr. McDaniel: How long were you at K-25?
Mr. Horton: I was there until I retired, which was about thirty-odd years.
Mr. McDaniel: At K-25?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I thought you went back to the Lab [X-10].
Mr. Horton: Oh, no. No, I was in the lab at K-25.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, I see, the lab at K-25.
Mr. Horton: People use “the lab” in a different context.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, so you went out of the process plant to the lab at K-25?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: I see, and you stayed there for how long?
Mr. Horton: About thirty years.
Mr. McDaniel: About thirty years, until you retired? What year did you retire?
Mr. Horton: Let’s see. It’s been so many years, it’s hard to remember.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, sure. Was it about ’86?
Mr. Horton: Oh no, it was before that.
Mr. McDaniel: It was before then?
Mr. Horton: Let’s see. I think I’ve been retired thirty-odd years. Maybe about ’67, I think, somewhere in there.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, something like that.
Mr. Horton: I was age sixty-two when I retired.
Mr. McDaniel: What kind of work did you do at the lab? Was it research mostly or development?
Mr. Horton: No, I worked in mass spectrometry, primarily, and I did spend a year or so with a special analytical group in chemistry, and then I went back to the mass spectrometer group and stayed there.
Mr. McDaniel: What did the mass spectrometer group do?
Mr. Horton: Well, they analyzed the uranium isotopes. We did plant control samples and samples from the development of the barrier process.
Mr. McDaniel: So really, you were making sure that it was being as efficient as it could be, the process was being as efficient as it could be, the gaseous diffusion process. Right.
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we had analysts around the clock supplying plant samples, as well as the barrier testing process was going on continually, and tiny improvements in barrier made a huge difference, and we were measuring those very tiny differences with the mass spectrometer.
Mr. McDaniel: So, one of the things you were doing is as they were testing the new barrier to make it more efficient, you were showing whether it was more efficient or not. If it was, then they could install the new barrier.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. Right.
Mr. McDaniel: Because I know that at the lab they did a lot of barrier improvement constantly, constantly improving the barrier because it was such a huge operation. Like you said, little improvement in the barrier made a huge difference.
Mr. Horton: Oh, yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, who were some of the folks you worked with out there? Do you remember?
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah, sure. The Mass Spectrometer Department, headed by Lester Smith, was a pretty good size outfit. I was in charge of the operation of the mass spectrometers. We had a whole room full of mass spectrometers, and we’d have several analysts working in there during the day, and at night we’d have usually two analysts on the off-shifts so that there was always somebody available to supply the analysis.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. How big were those mass spectrometers?
Mr. Horton: Well, they would stand about five or six feet tall, and they had a desk with a seat out in front of it, if you had time to sit down. You didn’t use it too much. Actually, the mass spectrometer, the housing had the electronics in it to supply the necessary power, and so on. We eventually tied all those to a computer, so instead of having a full-time calculator – it used to be there’d be one gal with a little hand calculator. We didn’t have computers back then. All day long, all she did was sit and calculate results. And that was all done by the computer after we hooked all those up there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Your mass spectrometer was kind of an automated system early on, anyway, wasn’t it? You put the sample in and then it gave you results? Is that how that worked?
Mr. Horton: Well, it really wasn’t. It wasn’t all that automated. You had to actually record the data and pass it on to the analyst.
Mr. McDaniel: Right, so you stayed out there, and did you ever work with Bill Wilcox?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, he was the supervisor of our whole technical division.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. What was he like?
Mr. Horton: Oh, he was fine. Fine. I didn’t have a lot of contact with him, but what little I did, I certainly had a lot of respect for him.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. So, you retired in you said about ’67 or so, right around there. Did you just have enough points, or you just decided it was time to retire, or were things changing so much out there you couldn’t tolerate it anymore? A lot of people have told me that.
Mr. Horton: One reason I retired early, my wife was in poor health and I wanted to be able to help her more, so I had had enough points to get a reasonable retirement pension, and I was eligible for Social Security at age sixty-two at that point, so it worked out all right.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, let’s go back, and we’ve kind of covered your work career a little bit. Let’s go back and talk about your family. Now, where did you meet your wife, and when did you get married?
Mr. Horton: Well, I met my wife in Oak Ridge. She was recruited by Dr. Blankenship, who started the Oak Ridge School System. He went out all over the country looking for excellent teachers, and she was recommended by the University of Michigan, where she graduated, and she was brought in as one of the high school teachers. She taught business subjects.
Mr. McDaniel: How did you meet her?
Mr. Horton: Well, they had recreation halls here, and I met her at one of the recreation halls, dancing and so on. They had I guess five or six commercial teachers. She was sort of the group leader in many ways, although officially she didn’t get any extra pay for it, but of all the girls that were going to work in the offices here would have her recommend them for office work in different places here.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. So she taught at the high school.
Mr. Horton: Yes. She stayed there until our son came along, and so after that, she didn’t go back to work. They had a rule that you could go back after one year, but she decided to stay home and raise the young’un.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. How many kids did you –
Mr. Horton: Just the one.
Mr. McDaniel: – just the one? Okay. All right. So, where did you live, or how long did you date and where did live once you got married?
Mr. Horton: Well, I met her in I’d say about 1944, I guess, and we dated quite a bit here, and when she went back to her home in Michigan for the summer, she was offered a better job than she had here. Actually, she was offered a job in a junior college up in Michigan, but I think she figured we were about to get married, although we really hadn’t talked about it. But, anyway, she came on back to Oak Ridge, and so we did get married shortly after that.
Mr. McDaniel: And she said, “I gave up a good job for you, so you better marry me,” right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, I don’t know whether she regretted it or not.
Mr. McDaniel: So, you got married and you had your son. So, once you got married, where did you live?
Mr. Horton: Well, we got an “A” house. We were lucky to get one near the old high school, over there near the football field.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, Blankenship [Field]. What street was the “A” house on?
Mr. Horton: That was on Kentucky.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, Kentucky? Right.
Mr. Horton: So she was just a block from where she worked there.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s handy.
Mr. Horton: But, it turns out we made a mistake. We could have had a larger house if we’d asked for it, because her parents had to come and live with us; we really needed more room.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I’m sure. So when did they end up coming to live with you, her parents?
Mr. Horton: Yes, they came down, and they weren’t in very good health, and we did manage to get a “B” house, which was a little improvement and we enlarged it and lived there until we moved to this place. We bought this place from the owner. This was a government-built house, and he had added on to it, as you’ve probably noticed. But he and his wife had separated, and we bought it from her, actually.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. What year was that? About what year was that?
Mr. Horton: About 1980.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay, so you stayed in the “B” house for a while, didn’t you?
Mr. Horton: Oh yes. Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, for quite some time. So back especially while the war was going on, people tell me that Oak Ridge was just, I mean, had all kinds of things going on. So what was it like to be a single man in Oak Ridge in 1943, ’44, and ’45?
Mr. Horton: Well, Oak Ridge was full of young people, you know? The dormitories were full of young men and young women, most of them in their twenties and thirties, and I played in a dance band, by the way.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, did you?
Mr. Horton: We played every Saturday night at the Jefferson Recreational Hall for a couple years, and usually we’d have some other date on maybe Friday night. We’d usually have about two jobs a week, on average.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? What did you play?
Mr. Horton: Well, I played trumpet to begin with, and then I switched over to a bass fiddle. So, I played bass most of the time.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Upright bass, I imagine.
Mr. Horton: Yeah. They had another dance band called The Rhythm Engineers, and they played every Saturday night at the Grove Center.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. I think I’ve seen a picture of The Rhythm Engineers. Do you have a photo of your dance band?
Mr. Horton: Well, I have one. This is not –
Mr. McDaniel: You can show it to me after we get through.
Mr. Horton: – okay. Yeah, we had actually two or three different groups I played in. We just had a piano, bass, drums and guitar and vocalist. We played jobs with that for a while. But, once in a while, I did fill in with The Rhythm Engineers when their bass player was sick or out of town or something, but I never played with them other than just a few times as a substitute.
Mr. McDaniel: Let me ask you a question. When you all played, I imagine you got hired to play.
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it the Recreation Department that hired you?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Do you remember how much you got paid?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we got ten dollars for a dance job, and then the leader got double.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay, so each of you got ten dollars?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, we each got ten dollars.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, okay. That wasn’t too bad. That wasn’t too shabby back then, was it?
Mr. Horton: It was not bad, for those days because, remember, when I came here in ’43, I think they were hiring Ph.D.s for three hundred dollars a month.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah. Sure. Well, my goodness. What other activities were you involved in?
Mr. Horton: Well, I did play a little tennis when they built these tennis courts there, and we didn’t have a golf course until 1947, and I was in the group that – well, in 1946, they tried to get one started but it didn’t go through. They wanted to get a hundred and twenty people to put up five hundred dollars, I guess, so for sixty thousand they would build a complete golf course for us. That sounds unreal these days, but –
Mr. McDaniel: I know. That’s amazing.
Mr. Horton: – anyway, we only raised about half that amount, so it didn’t work.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. But they did in ’47, right?
Mr. Horton: In ’47, we got together, and you had to work so many hours, each person contributed a few dollars and worked so many hours.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, and that was the country club, wasn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: That was the Oak Ridge Country Club.
Mr. Horton: It so happens I’m the only surviving member of the Charter Members there.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? So what did that investment buy you over the years, free membership?
Mr. Horton: Well, they started out with a different arrangement. The charter members were getting quite a good break on a membership. But, unfortunately, when the non-charters got in the majority, you can imagine they voted that out.
Mr. McDaniel: I’m sure they did. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: So that didn’t last too long.
Mr. McDaniel: So did you play golf out there a lot?
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah. Yeah, that was my – I never was very good at it. I mean I had a 12 handicap finally, the best I ever had, but I was sort of a mediocre golfer.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure, like ninety-nine percent of the people who play. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah. [laughter] We had a city band. I was one of the first members. In 1944, they organized a little band that played concerts. We had a director. His name was White, I believe, and he was from either Tulsa or Oklahoma City – one of the Oklahoma towns. Anyway, he didn’t stay around here very long, but I still play in the [Oak Ridge] Community Band. I’ve been with it ever since it started.
Mr. McDaniel: I bet you’re the oldest member of the Community Band, aren’t you? [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah. [laughter]
Mr. McDaniel: What do you play?
Mr. Horton: I play a baritone horn, a euphonium in the band. I get a little worse every year, but I still enjoy it.
Mr. McDaniel: So, you played with them from, what year was that?
Mr. Horton: 1944.
Mr. McDaniel: ’44.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s amazing. But I guess the musical family kind of came through with you, didn’t it?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, my dad was – he played the piano by ear. He couldn’t read music.
Mr. McDaniel: What else do you want to talk about? What else do you want to tell me about? Got any stories? Here’s a great chance for you to say what you’ve always wanted to say but didn’t.
Mr. Horton: Well, I certainly like Oak Ridge. Of course, I’ve lived here the majority of my life, but I think it has a lot to offer in the way of climate and in the way of people who live here. I think it’s a very good place to retire to, actually.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Speaking of that, what are some of the changes you’ve seen in Oak Ridge, for the good or the worse?
Mr. Horton: Of course when I got here, they didn’t have any paved roads. They were all gravel or mud. They put salt down to settle the dust, and then, when it rained, that salt would rot out your underside of the car. A lot of people had that problem. They didn’t have an undercoat, as you need to have a heavy undercoat to protect it, because often you’d see a fender or a floor of the trunk begin to drop out.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh sure, kind of like they do up north, kind of like those northern cars with all the salt on the roads.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. And your son, you said you had a son, right?
Mr. Horton: Yes.
Mr. McDaniel: So he grew up here in Oak Ridge, and he went to the schools and all. I mean, was it a good place to raise a family?
Mr. Horton: I think so, yes. My son really didn’t – he was an excellent football player in the Little Leagues. He got a trophy as the outstanding player. The reason for it was he was just at the ideal weight and age point to be one of the larger, stronger ones in the group, but that worked against him when he got into high school because he wasn’t all that large then. At that time, Oak Ridge was high school champions of the state. They were undefeated, and they had a lot of good players. He knew all of them and had scrimmages – he realized that he might play a defensive back or something, but he never did go out because he just didn’t mature quick enough. But then he kept growing, and now he’s almost your size. I think he weighs about two-forty.
Mr. McDaniel: Now, how old is he?
Mr. Horton: Oh, he’s up crowding fifty, I guess.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh, is that right? Okay. So, you didn’t have him until later on in life, did you?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, let’s see, I was about forty-five when he was born.
Mr. McDaniel: Yeah, exactly. How old were you when you got married?
Mr. Horton: Well, around thirty or so.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s what I was thinking, you were about – right. Right.
Mr. Horton: My wife was younger, four or five years younger, but when she had her first child, she was up past forty a little bit. The doctor told her when she was well along, said, “We’d prefer you to start earlier.” And, “Now you tell me,” she said.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s true. Now, you lost your wife, I take it.
Mr. Horton: Yes. She was a heavy smoker.
Mr. McDaniel: When did she pass away?
Mr. Horton: She died in ’89.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Where does your son live now?
Mr. Horton: He’s near Maryville. He’s a civil engineer.
Mr. McDaniel: So he’s close.
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: You get to see him.
Mr. Horton: Oh yeah, I see him almost every weekend. He has three children, one son and two daughters.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Well, good. Well is there anything else you want to tell me about, any other stories, anything you want to comment? You know, if you had to say, “Okay, I hope people remember me because,” what would that be?
Mr. Horton: Well, I don’t think of any outstanding event that would – in playing these dance jobs, we saw a lot of things. Well, for instance, beer was hard to come by then, and of course it was bottled. They didn’t have canned beer then. They, some Saturday nights – and by ‘they,’ I’m talking about the powers that be in Oak Ridge – would have beer at the Dance Hall, so we’d have probably half of them came just for the beer.
Mr. McDaniel: Oh sure. [laughter]
Mr. Horton: We might have five hundred customers: two hundred of them dancing and three hundred drinking beer. Well, you could imagine, with a bunch of young bucks, along about midnight the beer bottles would start flying.
Mr. McDaniel: Hold on just a second. We dropped your microphone. Just a minute.
Mr. Horton: Oh.
Mr. McDaniel: That’s okay. Jasmine will do it. We’re almost through. Yeah, so you had a lot of drunk, young men at those dances?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Did the cops ever have to come?
Mr. Horton: Yeah, they had a bunch of officers, but they tend to be older middle-age guys that really weren’t going to go in there and break up – they’d do the best they could, but they –
Mr. McDaniel: And I guess they probably thought, “These guys work hard all the time. They deserve to blow off a little steam every once in a while.”
Mr. Horton: Yeah. By in large, the dances were a little more sedate than that. Those were exceptional times, but it did happen once in a while.
Mr. McDaniel: Right. Now when they opened the gates to the city, did you go to those events, you know, the day that they opened the gates in ’49?
Mr. Horton: Yes, I remember those quite well. They had quite a performance there.
Mr. McDaniel: Sure. Now, did you want them to open the gates? You know, a lot of people didn’t back then. They didn’t want them to open the gates. They wanted to leave it. What were your feelings?
Mr. Horton: Well, I didn’t have any strong feelings on it, but it suited me all right if they didn’t. I mean it was ’49. You didn’t have to lock your house, and it was pretty nice in many ways. So, I guess if I’d voted on it, I would have voted to leave it like it was. Of course, you know that can’t continue forever. But somebody got the idea later on that they’d hire a bunch of young sort of criminals, in a way. They were street guys they’d brought in from Chicago, and they were going to rehabilitate them here in Oak Ridge, give them jobs. Well, it didn’t work out too well because all of a sudden, people were getting robbed and mugged here during that period.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right?
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: What timeframe?
Mr. Horton: I can’t remember the date.
Mr. McDaniel: Was it before the gates were opened, or after the gates were opened?
Mr. Horton: I think that was after.
Mr. McDaniel: It was probably in the ’50s, maybe?
Mr. Horton: Probably. I can’t be sure of that.
Mr. McDaniel: Is that right? I’ve never heard that story before.
Mr. Horton: You haven’t?
Mr. McDaniel: Nuhn-uhn. So, it didn’t work out too well, huhn?
Mr. Horton: No. All of sudden, you began to lock your house and be a little careful when you went out at night, particularly somebody walking around Jackson Square would get robbed down there.
Mr. McDaniel: My goodness.
Mr. Horton: But they eventually got rid of those – of course, not all of them. I mean a few of them settled down and did good work and all, but the criminals, they finally got rid of them, I think, pretty well.
Mr. McDaniel: Who was it brought them in, do you know? Who brought them in?
Mr. Horton: No, I don’t remember.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Was it the government?
Mr. Horton: Well, yeah, I think it had to be somebody related to either Roane-Anderson, who was running [the city] then.
Mr. McDaniel: So, for a while, Oak Ridge kind of had its own little mob, didn’t they? [laughter]
Mr. Horton: Yeah.
Mr. McDaniel: Well, is there anything else you want to say? We’ve talked for a while. Is there anything else you want to add?
Mr. Horton: Well, I don’t think of anything at the moment.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. All right. We thank you for taking the time to talk with us –
Mr. Horton: Okay.
Mr. McDaniel: – and it was nice speaking to you, and maybe people that watch this will have an opportunity to learn something they didn’t know before.
Mr. Horton: Possibly.
Mr. McDaniel: Okay. Thank you.
[end of recording]